Page:Science and the Modern World.djvu/198

 different modes of vibration have different frequencies. Compare each mode to a nation. One mode corresponds to the United States, and another mode corresponds to England. One mode can only radiate its energy is an integral number of cents, so that a cent of energy is the least it can pay out; whereas the other mode can only radiate its energy in an integral number of farthings, so that a farthing of energy is the least that it can pay out. Also a rule can be found to tell us the relative value of the cent of energy of one mode to the farthing of energy of another mode. The rule is childishly simple: Each smallest coin of energy has a value in strict proportion to the frequency belonging to that mode. By this rule, and comparing farthings with cents, the frequency of an American would be about twice that of an Englishman. In other words, the American would do about twice as many things in a second as an Englishman. I must leave you to judge whether this corresponds to the reputed characters of the two nations. Also I suggest that there are merits attaching to both ends of the solar spectrum. Sometimes you want red light and sometimes violet light.

There has been, I hope, no great difficulty in comprehending what the quantum theory asserts about molecules. The perplexity arises from the effort to fit the theory into the current scientific picture of what is going on in the molecule or atom.

It has been the basis of the materialistic theory, that the happenings of nature are to be explained in terms of the locomotion of material. In accordance with this principle, the waves of light were explained in terms of the locomotion of a material ether, and the